The increase in the gasoline tax in New Jersey accomplished more than just — supposedly — providing money to fix some of the potholes that are ruining my car.

The hike may also have finally put gas smugglers out of business.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if someone can buy gas in Jersey that is 34 cents a gallon cheaper than in New York, there would be smuggling.

Ever since getting my driver’s license, I’ve had two main reasons for going to Jersey from New York, where I lived (besides, of course, the beautiful shore).

One was that the drinking age was lower in the Garden State. The second was that once you got a few drinks, you could fill up your car at a discount for the ride home.

Now, before you get on me, I’m sure we used designated drivers back then and never exceeded the DWI limit. And in case you think I am being dismissive of the problem of drunk driving, I’m not. These days I won’t even have one drink if I’m driving. And you shouldn’t either.

But I digress.

New Jersey announced recently that, as of Nov. 1, its gasoline tax would rise by 23 cents, to 37.5 cents, a gallon.

Up until now the state has had the second-lowest gas tax in the US, at 14.5 cents, according to the Tax Foundation. On Nov. 1, it will be in the Top 10.

So, with the low pump prices, smugglers liked New Jersey gas, too.

The last big roundup of New Jersey gas smugglers occurred in 2007, when New York state tax officials arrested eight members of what was dubbed the Gladyshev Enterprise on charges of enterprise corruption.

The bootleggers would transport gasoline from refineries in New Jersey to Brooklyn and Long Island, where they would sell it.

As an interesting aside, they stayed away from the E-ZPass lanes because they feared leaving an electronic trail.

Often the smugglers would mislabel regular gas as premium, so they were charged with defrauding station owners — although I’m sure a few of the stations were in on the gag.

New York sought to recover $3 million from the defendants, although that only covered the scam from March to December of 2005. The profits from this were probably much, much larger since tanker trucks were carrying 10,000 gallons per trip and making five drops a day.

And there were at least 25 trucks — all of which were seized.

So a lot of money was being made in what Wall Street would have called arbitrage — moving a commodity from here to there — but which authorities called robbery.

Did the bootlegging end after that crackdown? Nobody really knows because enforcement seemed to slow. But this much is certain: With Jersey’s recent gasoline tax increase, anyone thinking of staying in the bootlegging business will soon discover that it suddenly doesn’t pay as well.